January 27, 2011

As a student at Inkster High School, Horton helped found the group that would eventually become the Marvelettes, linking up with fellow glee club members Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart, Georgeanna Tillman and Georgia Dobbins.

A successful audition for Motown Records was followed in 1961 by the group's debut single, "Please Mr. Postman," with 17-year-old Horton on lead vocals. It became Motown's biggest pop crossover hit to that point, reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100.

The audio is a lot better here. And here are The Beatles covering the song, pretty much adopting The Marvelettes' style. (You know The Beatles took a large component of what they were from the great girl groups of the early 60s.)

My favorite Marvelettes song was always "Beechwood 4-5789." Another really cool one is "Don't Mess With Bill":

Love the bows! We girls used to go to school dressed just like that in the early 60s. Tried to tease our hair that big too. It wasn't easy! It wasn't even possible.

I love looking back at these old styles and this old music. I'm sorry that these days the occasion for celebrating someone from back then is an obituary. I'm sad to hear that Glady Horton has died, but let's talk about how great The Marvelettes were.

You know The Beatles took a large component of what they were from the great girl groups of the early 60s

Which is sort of ironic, because the advent of the Beatles really put the kabosh on the growing and vibrant cross over acceptance of Motown by the general public. They retarded and almost killed Motown for a while.

It is interesting to think what music today might look like and sound like if the Beatles had appeared 10 years later than they did. To think what the emerging Black music scene might have produced. What artists might have been able to make it, without the Beatles and the rest of the British scene groups.

The death of a rock singer is rarely an intimation of mortality. They have a different kind of life span. The death of a fitness expert throws a shadow across your grave..... Her music still seems fresh and buoyant, but those moves come from not another era but another dimension.